The second-ranking official at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey taunted New Jersey’s senior U.S. Senator, and after several testy exchanges, the senator pounded his gavel and declared the hearing over with the official in mid-sentence.

Port Authority Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni was testifying before the Senate’s Commerce Subcommittee on Surface Transportation when the chairman, U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), asked whether he thought the agency’s toll hike last summer had been fair to commuters. (You can watch the whole hearing here)

Rather than give a simple yes or no answer, Baroni questioned Lautenberg’s moral standing to pose the question, pointing out that while serving as a Port Authority commissioner from 1978-82, Lautenberg had taken advantage of a board perk and crossed bi-state bridges and tunnels for free 284 times in his last two years alone.

"Senator, it is impossible to argue fairness in tolls if you don’t pay them," Baroni told the 88-year-old veteran lawmaker.

Lautenberg shot back with an angry warning that the 40-year-old bureaucrat should stick to the question at hand.

"That’s what was there. I used it, I’m not going to defend it," Lautenberg said of the perk. "That’s a silly thing to bring in here."
Several other times during the hearing, Lautenberg scolded Baroni for trying to evade or sidetrack his questions. At one point, after Lautenberg had asked Baroni about a conversation with Gov. Chris Christie — who appointed Baroni to the agency — Baroni said he would not comment on his conversations with the governor.

That prompted another irate response from Lautenberg.

"You are going to comment, my friend. You have a responsibility to comment whether you like it or not," Lautenberg said. "And you’re going to tell the truth."

"Of course I’m going to tell the truth," Baroni shot back. "And the implication that I’m not is offensive to me."

The exchange was the latest volley in an escalating war of words between the Port Authority and the Republican governor on one side and Democratic opponents of the governor who have become vocal critics of the agency on the other.

Among other issues dividing the two sides, Launtenberg has accused the Port Authority of working hand-in-glove with Christie to make a bogus case for killing the ARC trans-Hudson commuter rail tunnel in 2010. Christie and Port Authority officials deny the accusations. Christie, who insists the tunnel would have costs taxpayers billions, recently called Lautenberg a hack.

"The senator from New Jersey didn’t want to hear anything about the past at the Port Authority, even though the building blocks of the agency’s dysfunction and fiscal problems were years in the making," Drewniak said. "In fact, as we learned today, Senator Lautenberg himself perpetuated some of the very dysfunction that only now, under Governor Christie and (New York Gov. Andrew) Cuomo, is being reversed through reforms and intensive audits."

Baroni was also scheduled to testify at a joint legislative hearing tomorrow on Staten Island. An hour after today’s hearing, however, the hearing was canceled. Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex), one of the co-chairmen, said his office got a call from his Republican counterpart from New York informing him the hearing would have to postponed due to a scheduling conflict.

"I'm concerned that there may be more to this than simply a scheduling issue," said Wisniewski, who also chairs the state Democratic Party.

Lautenberg convened today’s hearing in Washington after sponsoring the so-called Commuter Protection Act in the wake of last summer’s Port Authority toll hike. The bill would allow the U.S. transportation secretary to roll back excessive toll hikes by agencies that receive federal funding.

The Port Authority’s action raised peak tolls from $8 to $9.50 for E-ZPass customers and $12 for cash payers, rising in increments to $12 and $15, respectively, by December 2015.

Baroni said in his opening statement that the Port Authority was forced to raise tolls after "decades of excessive spending" and a recession-related $2.6 billion decline in revenues, in order to move ahead with urgent projects that would also create 16,000 construction jobs.

Later today, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) chairman of the Commerce Committee, took Baroni to task for his conduct before the subcommittee.

“I am troubled and disappointed by accounts of inappropriate discourse and decorum by a witness," Rockefeller said in a statement. "A basic level of civility is expected from every witness who testifies in a formal Senate hearing and reports suggest that standard was not met today.”